Three Ways to Stick to Your Meal Plan
We’ve all been there. You put in the effort to craft a great meal plan on Sunday afternoon, but now it’s Tuesday and the cat had a hairball on the rug, your daughter has to be picked up from soccer practice at four, and your son goes to his cross-country practice at seven. The meal plan goes out the window, and you drive through for a taco and eat in the car.
Meal planning doesn’t have to be this way! It is absolutely possible to stick to your meal plan, and today I’m going to give you my three top tips on how to do it.
1. View your meal plan as a tool.
You don’t need to work for your meal plan; it needs to work for you! When you make the shift from seeing your meal plan as something that locks you down and start seeing it as something that frees up time and energy, it’s possible to follow where it wasn’t before. Your meal plan is a tool for you to use to help reach your food goals, whether that’s dieting, staying on budget, or making sure your kids have enough energy to do all their activities.
It can be tempting to view a meal plan as an obligation, but I find that when I step back from that and see it as a tool I’m using to help me do the things I want to do, I don’t resent it. Resentment is a surefire way to give up, and I want you to feel like you can keep up with your meal plan. Meal planning isn’t something you have to do, it’s something you’re choosing to do. You could go back to stressing over what to have for dinner every single night, but who wants that? Your meal plan gives you freedom from that kind of stress, and if it’s planned properly, you have more time in your day to do the things that are really important to you.
2. Be clear about your priorities.
It would be great to be able to clean the house, make sure the kids get to practice, and have time to cook a super-healthy four course meal full of secret kale they’ll never know was in there, but for a lot of us, that’s just not realistic. Instead of stressing over what you can’t do, make sure you’re able to do the things that are important. You might have to ask yourself some difficult questions at the beginning, but the more you plan this way, the more it becomes second nature.
If your goal is to eat takeout food less and cook at home more, then planning is what makes it possible. If you already have what you need to make spaghetti or a fancy grilled cheese, then you can make dinner just as quickly as you could pile in the car and drive to the fast food restaurant. You’ll feel better about it, too! And while the price of groceries is sky high right now, it’s still cheaper than eating out.
Consider writing down your reasons for meal planning and putting them where you’re going to see them, like on the fridge or somewhere else in the kitchen. When you are honest with yourself about what your real priorities are, it’s easier to plan for them and stay on track.
3. Align your meal plan to your schedule.
The best defense is a good offence. If you keep your schedule in mind while you’re planning for the week, you can build in meals that are fast and easy for the nights when you know you’ll be extra tired or have less time. I often plan to have leftovers on those nights, or something like spaghetti or sandwiches that are quick to make and easy to eat. Save the fried chicken for a night when you know you’ll have plenty of energy and plenty of time. Slow cookers are also your friends on nights when you know you’ll be rushed.
I like to build in extra flexibility to my meal plan as well. By having the ingredients in the house to make at least one quick meal for the times when I’ve unexpectedly run out of an ingredient for the meal I planned, or something goes off the plan and I can’t do what I wanted to do, I can always make pancakes for dinner and everyone still gets fed. Keeping something on hand that’s less than ideal but better than takeout is a good way to keep yourself on track with your goals and out of the drive through lane.
Those are my three top tips for sticking to your meal plan! With a little forethought, you can avoid giving into frustration and stay on track with your meal plan, and I promise, the feeling of sticking to your goals is a wonderful thing.
If you find yourself struggling even with these tips, it’s probably not you: it’s your meal plan. With a few simple mindset shifts, you can meal plan like the pros, and I’ll show you how to do it in my course, How to Meal Plan from Start to Finish. If you’ve always felt like everyone else must know some secret to meal planning that you just don’t get, then this is the course for you. Check it out HERE!
What tricks do you use to stay on track with your meal plan? I would love to hear about them in the comments. Thanks for reading, and until next time, I’m wishing you a peaceful life in a pretty home!